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<title>love might be the only real thing in the world besides you by chagodlok (anattemptatalliteration)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28850541">love might be the only real thing in the world besides you</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/anattemptatalliteration/pseuds/chagodlok'>chagodlok (anattemptatalliteration)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Weak Hero (Webcomic)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Gen, Pining, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Relationship Study, and he is not emotionally competent enough for this, i promise its romantic but its gray romantic ya feel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:20:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,589</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28850541</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/anattemptatalliteration/pseuds/chagodlok</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Stephen’s a romanticist, Gray thinks as the autumn breeze buffets his face and turns his cheeks as pink as the tip of Stephen’s nose is.</p>
  <p>“Don’t you mean optimist?” Stephen asks.</p>
</blockquote>Gray and Stephen have a conversation and something more on their shared walk back from school.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Stephen Ahn/Gray Yeon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>love might be the only real thing in the world besides you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/croissantbleu/gifts">croissantbleu</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>HAAAAAPPY Birthday nokire my dear friend!! thank you for allowing me to drag you into my inescapable niches &lt;&lt;33 please enjoy this wonderfully painful niche &lt;3</p><p>reference context + spoilers for kdrama Reply 1997:<br/>Reply 1997 features a sideplot where a male character(played by Hoya from INFINITE) is explicitly shown to have unrequited romantic feelings for one of the main male leads(played by Seo In-guk &lt;3), and confesses to him(denied/rejected unfortunately), and you can watch that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avr-2qKc99M&amp;ab_channel=BLunityOfficial">here</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em> Stephen’s a romanticist</em>, Gray thinks as the autumn breeze buffets his face and turns his cheeks as pink as the tip of Stephen’s nose is. The clouds are scarce today, but the pale blue behind them makes the sky a solid mass of grey, fitting of an autumn afternoon in Korea. It’d be foolish of him to expect anything less than cold that’s not bitter but cuts deep into his chest. The wind is quiet despite its strength, evident in the fluttering of auburn leaves in the corners of his vision. The burnt orange matches the color of Stephen’s scarf, wrapped around his neck three times. He had gently unspooled the seemingly never-ending wool from his schoolbag as they left campus, acknowledging the far-from-few stares with a wink.</p><p>Gray shifts his own bag, only textbooks inside, up on his shoulder. It’s a slight movement, but it’s rare enough to make Stephen turn to him. Gray keeps his arm resting across his chest, hand clutching the strap a little too hard. Stephen’s bangs fall into his eyes just <em> so</em>, but he shakes his head gently to move them away. It would look awkward on anyone else, Gray included, but Stephen’s personable enough that nothing’s awkward with him. </p><p>Stephen’s more than personable. He’s conventionally attractive, charismatic, charming, and indiscriminate with favors. He’s also tall: long legs, tapered torso, and a slender neck under a steadfast jawline. He’s tall enough that Gray would have to stand on his tiptoes to make eye contact. He doesn’t know where that thought comes from or why it warms his cheeks from the inside. Gray’s list of questions regarding Stephen and him only ever gets larger. Gray thinks he’s fine with the answers staying hidden.</p><p>“Don’t you mean optimist?” Stephen asks. </p><p>Gray pauses, feet set as if they were never moving to start with. Maybe they weren’t. Gray can’t trust his situational awareness if he’s saying his thoughts out loud. It’s not speaking before thinking, but it is uncharacteristic behavior and Stephen knows that. He’s already stopped walking. Gray wonders how long they’ve been standing on this square of sidewalk, dead leaves their only company.</p><p>“I mean, romanticist might work,” Stephen continues. His voice is calm. Gray lets himself breathe. Stephen speaks lightly even when his words have steel behind them. He always lets everyone else say their piece. Disagreement is laughed away in waves and smoothed over until you wouldn’t believe a rock was thrown into a peaceful pond in the first place. </p><p>Gray would call him a pacifist if it wasn’t too simple of a term to describe Stephen. Gray will call him a better person, which is both truthful and wholistic enough. If he was any less better of a person, they wouldn’t be here together. Gray finds fewer explanations to why Stephen is <em> still </em> here as time goes on, but he’s reluctant to continue along this line of questioning. </p><p>Stephen likes talking to Gray. That can remain a foreign concept. </p><p>“Both seem to fit you,” Gray says. They haven’t started walking again. The breeze bites at Gray’s face even though he isn’t fighting it. Stephen shakes his bangs again. The action’s distracted enough to be recognized as a casual habit instead of nerves.</p><p>“Seem?” Stephen teases, “I didn’t think you’d speak about me in uncertainties.”</p><p>“It's impossible to always be certain,” Gray shoots back, quickly. It’s jumping into a trap, but he knows there won’t be consequences. Not with Stephen.</p><p>“You say in a certainty,” Stephen replies. Check and mate. Gray allows the feeling in his chest to flutter once, twice, then breathes it out slowly. His hand slides down the bag’s strap until it’s resting at his side. Stephen’s smile grows wider.</p><p>They start walking again, pace slower than before. Gray wonders if his steps are heavier because he has more questions or more answers. Stephen’s steps remain as light as his laughter.</p><p>“Do you ever read any romance?” he asks, hopping over a rare crack in the pavement. His breath whooshes out a little louder than normal when he lands.</p><p>“No,” Gray replies, stepping on the crack in some form of rebellion. Stephen’s eyes crinkle at the corners. His gaze is directed at the crack, but there’s a distance to its depth. It didn’t feel different from the rest of the pavement.</p><p>“Do you like romance?”</p><p>Gray shrugs. He doesn’t read romance in novels or listen to hallway gossip. He can’t explain that he’s only ever been interested in one romantic endeavor, but interested is an inadequate word to describe the feeling his chest gets when Hoya confesses to Seo In-guk in Reply 1997. It’s more of an indulgence than any form of fascination. Gray doesn’t have any questions about that scene. He understands it. He doesn’t even wonder what the soda tasted like after Hoya watched his crush drink it to avoid rejecting him with words, arm burning hot where it was flung over his shoulder. Gray thinks it would have been bitter.</p><p>Was that really romance if there was no chance of it succeeding? </p><p>He doesn’t know why he watched it in the first place. TVN had been on a marathon of the whole Reply series, and he’s never been interested in modern dramas. But his parents were gone again so there was nobody there to tell him to stop. They might have told him to stop if they were there, but they weren’t. Gray doesn’t entertain hypotheticals when he doesn’t have enough information.</p><p>Stephen wouldn’t laugh, if Gray said he liked him. He knows that. He still can’t say it.</p><p>“I don’t watch dramas,” Gray says, when Stephen refuses to look away from him. Gray can’t meet his eyes. Stephen might hear it as a lie, but he keeps walking. Gray follows him.</p><p>“I don’t usually watch dramas either,” Stephen says. He’s kicking a pebble down the road now, carefully and making sure it never runs out of sight. “Too many of them have sad endings. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, you know?”</p><p>Stephen laughs. He does that a lot, but it never bothers Gray like everything else does eventually. He’ll never get tired of Stephen as long as Stephen doesn’t get tired of him. There’s something rushing in his ears now. He can’t hear his heartbeat, but he knows it’s in sync with the roar.</p><p>“And they’re always so dramatic,” Stephen continues, “I know people like it, but I wish people would just talk to each other. It’s amazing how much you can do when people listen! There’s so much in this world that’s possible, but people are stubborn. It’s a shame.” </p><p>“Is it being stubborn,” Gray says, “or is it the human limit?”</p><p>“Do you believe in that?”</p><p>“What would I believe in otherwise?”</p><p>“The possibility of potential,” Stephen replies, and Gray realizes that they’ve stopped again. No leaves are peeking into Gray’s eyesight, but Stephen’s hair is the same color as the most vibrant of them. “I think we can do anything that this world has to offer us. We still have time, and I know the world’s greater than what any teacher or book has taught me.</p><p>“I want to explore it all,” Stephen says, bronze eyes looking directly into Gray’s own.</p><p><em>I think you can do everything and more</em>, Gray thinks so strongly he might be shouting it, <em> and I want to watch you do it.</em></p><p>“Of course,” Stephen says softly, and maybe Gray said this out loud like he did to start this whole conversation. “I wouldn’t want anyone else with me except for you.”</p><p>Gray can’t stop the shiver that runs through his whole body, starting the tips of his toes and returning through his vena cava and out his aorta, blood almost boiling with the strength of Stephen’s conviction. Maybe this is romance, something that takes over his heart and never leaves it. Something that Stephen holds in his smile. Something that Gray <em> wants</em> so badly he can taste it.</p><p>“Are you cold?” Stephen asks. Gray shrugs. His mouth is frozen, but he wouldn’t have words for him even if he could move it. Stephen reaches up a slender hand. His fingers, Gray knows they’re calloused from constant running against corkboard and concrete wall, curl around his scarf like it’s the most precious thing in the world.</p><p>“Take this,” Stephen says, orange wool spilling out in between his fingers. It looks like fire licking at logs in a fireplace. The sun hasn’t broken through the grey sky above them. Gray’s tired of being cold.</p><p><em>I don’t want to take from you when I can’t ever give you anything</em>. He knows he’s not saying this out loud, but maybe it’s better where the wind can’t reach. Stephen lives in the unspoken and implicit, and Gray wants to share that space in between syllables. A confession only needs understanding, not words. Gray doesn’t need to think about it to breathe out.</p><p>“Let’s share,” he says, and doesn’t add <em> like we’ll share everything else</em>. Stephen will hear it.</p><p>He laughs again. The scarf isn’t scratchy at all. It’s warm, Stephen’s body heat lingering where it fits perfectly against the curve of Gray’s neck. Gray allows himself to dip his chin into the folds of fabric. It’s nice. Gray can let that statement wait behind his tongue until it’s ready. The scarf feels like the comfort of a home already warmed before he steps through the entrance.</p><p>He finds out that Stephen’s hand is just as warm a second later.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>as a point of personal pride: I wrote the paragraph where Gray goes on a "tangent" about Stephen's height BEFORE I read the s2 epilogue where Gray has a canonical monologue tangent about Gerald's height, so I See You Mr. Yeon</p><p>these boys are Very Good, I hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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